Tag Cloud
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Safe Ground yet to be found
by Hawa Arsala, published on July 14, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Storyline: Street Philosophy
Police arrived at the most recent Safe Ground location on North D and North 11th streets Monday afternoon to notify about 100 homeless campers that they must vacate the premises.
Safe Ground is an attempt to find a safe, legal space for the homeless to settle.
Reverend David Moss was the only arrest made that afternoon for trespassing. Sacramento Police Department spokesperson, Sgt. Norm Leong commented, “He refused to identify if he was camping on the site and refused to leave.”
The empty lot is owned partially by the city and two private property owners. Joan Burke, Director of Advocacy with Loaves & Fishes, said those camping were aware only of the city ownership of the property.
“We came here to facilitate the removal of illegal camping and trespassing complaints of neighboring businesses and owners of the property,” Leong said.
Since the closing of the shelters, the homeless have now been forced to leave a fourth camping location since July 1.
The first was on a vacant lot at 420 Richards Blvd., the second was a vacant parcel of city owned land at 100 Bercut Dr., and the third was a small camp site between the Volunteers of America Shelter and the Union Gospel shelter on Bannon St.
“Thus far everyone is cooperating and moving their property,” Leong said.
Leong said that the police department does not claim itself as an organization fit to solve the homeless issue. “Our job is to enforce ordinances and laws in place," Leong said.
Since their time searching for a safe space to settle, the homeless have become self-governing.
“Campers as a group elected five people to be on a governing board,” Burke said.
She said the board is a Council of Elders, inspired by tribal practices, which helps make decisions about the group in a democratic process. “Each camper signed an individual pledge that the campground be drug, alcohol, and violence free,” Burke said. “It was the first thing the entire camp decided on."
Following the clearing of the lot, Joan Burke made her way to a meeting on the 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness.
In a phone interview Tuesday morning, Burke explained that the policy board met and voted Monday to ask the city of Sacramento to "adopt a moratorium on the enforcement of anti-camping laws."
This advisory policy will be passed from the board, which consists of non-profit organizations, businesses, law enforcement, and the homeless community, to the Sacramento City Council and the City Manager's Office.
The campers are planning to go to the City Council meeting Tuesday night with their gear to raise questions about where they will be sleeping tonight.
“This is a grave situation with nowhere for folks to go,” Burke said.
Flag Article As:
Conversation Express your views,
debate, and be heard with those in your area closest
to the issue.
Leave a Comment
No kidding. How can poverty be criminalized in such a fashion.
I wish I could better understand why these folks are not at relatives, friends, or church members door step for support. ( Have they no aunts, uncles, brother, sisters?) And are these truely "homeless" people, in the sence that they are down on their luck for a short while, or are they rebranded bums or criminals who just want to go that direction? Living in a free country also allows us the freedom to make bad decisions.
For some people a crippling sense of paranoia keeps them from following these social norms due to progressive mental illness. That is just one easy example of the unique problems that lead people down this path. Yet, others never had support and that coupled with other problems they never had a chance. Some were even raised in feral environments. Obviously trespassing is illegal, but in the broader spectrum these people are criminalized and thus further marginalized.
Putting it in such simple terms saying that these people have no homes because they have all made bad decisions is quite unfair. Again the easiest cause to point at is mental illness and lack of treatment, although it is far more multi-dimensional than that. With that said I worry about how the state seems to be ignoring the rise in dementia cases. With this lack of preparation we will soon see a severe increase in elderly homelessness among people with progressive degenerative cognitive disease.
Fact: Around a quarter of homeless people are mentally ill, and about 40% are alcohol or
substance abusers, with around 15% suffering both disabilities.
Koegel has researched the prevalence of mental illness among the homeless population and
found "between 20% and 25% of those homeless people studied have at some time
experienced severe and often extremely disabling mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and
the major affective disorders (clinical depression or bipolar disorder)."
James Wright, of Tulane University, has studied the prevalence of alcohol and other drug abuse
among the homeless population. He finds that 38% of homeless people are alcohol abusers, as
opposed to 10% of the general population. He furthermore finds that 13% of homeless people
are drug abusers.
The Center for Mental Health Services states that betweeen10 and 20% of homeless people
suffer "co-occurring severe mental and substance use disorders."
Please list the penal code that criminalizes poverty.
"It is unlawful and a public nuisance for any person to camp, occupy camp facilities, or use camp paraphernalia in the following areas:
A. Any public property; or
B. Any private property.
1. It is not intended by this section to prohibit overnight camping on private residential property by friends or family of the property owner, so long as the owner consents and the overnight camping is limited to not more than one consecutive night.
2. Nothing in this chapter is intended to prohibit or make unlawful, activities of an owner of private property or other lawful user of private property that are normally associated with and incidental to the lawful and authorized use of private property for residential or other purposes; and provided further, nothing is intended to prohibit or make unlawful, activities of a property owner or other lawful user if such activities are expressly authorized by the city’s comprehensive zoning ordinance or other laws, ordinances and regulations.
3. The city manager may, as provided in Section 12.52.050 of this chapter, issue a temporary permit to allow camping on public or private property in connection with a special event.
A violation of this section is a misdemeanor. In addition to the remedies set forth in Penal Code Section 370, the city attorney may institute civil actions to abate a public nuisance under this chapter. (Prior code § 44.03.007)
http://www.qcode.us/codes/sacramento/view.php?topic=12-12_52-12_52_030&frames=off
The laws you listed have to do with camping. Where are the laws that "criminalize poverty"?
I doubt there would ever be any laws that directly come out and say "It is a crime to be poor." I hope none of our policy makers are that heartless. However, it can be done through indirect means. Whether it is intentional or unintentional I don't know.
When someone doesn't have enough money to pay rent they are forced to leave. If they can't find any subsidized housing - which they often can't. they are forced to look for friends or family who can put them up. If they can't find friends or family then they are forced to look for emergency shelter. In Sacramento there are not enough emergency shelters and many have long waiting lists. If they can't find emergency shelter...well, then they must sleep on the river banks, under the bridges, or in the alley ways. But wait, don't they know it's illegal to camp. And it's not just illegal to camp on the sidewalks or in doorways - but anywhere. Even in far removed fields. Even on far removed fields where the owner says it's ok.
Not all of the poor are criminalized by the anti camping ordinance. Just the 1200 poor people who were unlucky enough to not have any friends, family, or access to shelter.
I should clear up that most of the homeless people in these stories do know that what they are doing has legal consequences, because they are active in the community. They have advocated for a legal "Safe Ground" to avoid citations and incarceration. They are left with almost no options for housing, and you touch on the closing of the emergency shelters, which is a part of this lack in options.
Thank you for contributing your thoughts!
You can scroll down to get the full plan and summaries as well. This is what it says about the plan "Adopted unanimously by the City Council and the County Board of Supervisors in September of 2006, the 10-Year Plan describes innovative new strategies to address chronic homelessness."
I should get an update on that council meeting if I can find somebody who attended!
The 10-Year Plan is a city and county program, it is intended to address chronic homelessness (those who have been on the street for a year or more) and is in progress despite the obvious budget setbacks. It is not intended as a comprehensive program to eliminate all homelessness (and never was) but about 1000 chronic homeless over the course of a decade.
From all reports Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix) campus plan as implemented has had considerable success but Sacramento providers didn't like Maricopa's plan. I believe that NYC also reported some success.
Thanks for the information. Do you have resources you can point us to so that we may be able to access the information you cite above?
On the other hand some criticized them for what they did because it sounded like they were kind of tough----tough love type thing. From just reading it then, it seemed very successful but it is an issue that brings out both sides as you know here. But providing living facilities and services on site sounded like a step up from what we have here and what some other counties have..
Did you know that some homeless people camp outdoors because if they work, they can't stay in a shelter? To stay in a shelter, you have to arrive by 3pm. If you work say a temp job that day- or any job for that matter, you're out on the street for the night. At shelters, there's no plopping on the couch and cracking a beer and watching the game either. Many also prefer to camp outdoors because if your married or in a committed relationship, you can't stay with your spouse- as soon as you enter a shelter, the men and women are separated. It's not just about sleeping arrangements, remember it's from 3pm in the afternoon on. (They also wake you up and throw you out in the streets at 5-6am depending on the shelter. That would about kill me.)
For goodness sake- let these people sleep at night until we can figure out the shelter situation or until we can reach out to each and every one and help them find the type of housing that is suitable for them- until they can reengage with everyday society...they need housing with services attached to them, housing without services attached- shared housing, boarding houses, apartments, etc. We all know there's not enough housing out there and available that is affordable to people with extremely low incomes. The housing that is available costs more than these people can make in a month or 6 months once their out scraping everyday just to survive and being pushed from gutter to bush to bridge and back again.
Maybe if people looked at this problem (gradual displacement due to regional economic collapse) instead as an opportunity to practice our response to emergency situations, it may be more likely we, together, will fare much better rather than worse in a more immediate displacement problem, like a massive fire or flood.
FYI- Sacramento has been destroyed by both in the past, so its likely either will happen again. Its only a matter of time and whether or not we are prepared.